5 ms·

Decent article, but I guess I'll weigh in on the counter-points: 1. Uninformed consumers returning devices isn't unique to Android Tablets. It happens in basic

Decent article, but I guess I'll weigh in on the counter-points: 1. Uninformed consumers returning devices isn't unique to Android Tablets. It happens in basically every corner of the market. People buy Macs and wonder why their Windows apps don't work on them. There's really not much you can change about that, aside from trying to educate them slightly in whatever form of advertisement you have. I do think all the commercials for Android Tablets are terrible though. The iPad's wins by a landslide. 2. 16:9 vs 4:3 is really just personal preference. There are some apps that I really enjoy the 16:9 ratio for (like movies, books, and general internet browsing). For others, yes it does feel a bit wide or tall at times. This becomes a non-issue if you decide to go for a 7-inch tablet though, which I believe 3.2 just introduced support for. 3. There's a "Featured Tablet" application section on the market blatantly visible the first time you start the application. Unfortunately that's about where it ends, as there's no way to tell if an application is tablet-ready from its details page, and no way to filter for tablet-ready apps when doing a search. It's been said before, but the Market really needs an overhaul. I have noticed apps start to name themselves "HD" if they're tablet-ready, but that's not really consistent or a standard at this point. 4. Honeycomb's 3.2 version that released this past month now has the "app zooming" feature the author described missing. 5. It's been said before, but I'll repeat it here: the lack of tablet-ready apps is really just a matter of time. People tend to forget that it took iPad several months to get a decent selection of apps optimized for that screen size. This summer a good number started cropping up on the Market for Android, and now that more tablets are landing in the hands of developers (like the Transformer and Galaxy Tab), we'll no doubt see a ton of apps begin to flood us come Winter.

Xuzz 15y ago
The iPad had 2,000 apps on launch day: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/02/best-ipad-apps-launch/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/02/best-ipad-apps-launch/ Hell, even the HP TouchPad had 300 at launch a month ago (which may even be more than Honeycomb had then, there's no way to tell due to that Market issue). I don't know why there's so few apps for Android tablets, but I haven't seen any signs of the numbers getting much higher. And it's not like developers haven't had both 6 months to work and (for some) free Google I/O tablets to develop on.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Part of the reason for the paucity of tablet-specific apps may be that Android does a better job of scaling phone-sized apps to the tablet screen. My friend's Xoom, for example, appeared to run fantastically with the same ConnectBot SSH client as my phone right after the Xoom's release. Edit: refute, please, instead of/in addition to downvoting. Seriously. Android does this.
  - Xuzz 15y ago
    Android does do this, but it only very rarely has worked for me. Like, take the Dropbox app, which is even listed under "featured tablet apps": you have file listings that are 8" wide, with no more content shown on a tablet than on a phone (which is just file name and icon). A few, rare apps are usable scaled (ConnectBot is a good example), but almost nothing is ideal — or even usable — OOTB. At least with the ones I've tried.
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      Would you say the Android situation is better or worse than the pixel doubling seen on the iPad for iPhone apps?
      - Xuzz 15y ago
        Not really relevant, since there's enough iPad apps that it doesn't matter: I use one pixel-doubled app on the iPad (Facebook) and they're coming out with a native app very soon anyway.
Terretta 15y ago
> 1. Uninformed consumers returning devices isn't unique to Android Tablets. It happens in basically every corner of the market. Sorry, but that's a Fox News style "counterpoint" when Android returns at 30% - 40% and iPhone returns at 1.7%. To say "there's not much you can change about that" is to dismiss what has been done to make iOS radically more approachable, comprehensible to, and usable by regular users than other platforms.
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  Funny you should say Fox News, because the 30-40% number was pulled out of thin air by a random TechCrunch writer with absolutely no sources or evidence. I've yet to see a single factual report showing Android's numbers being any higher than average for tech devices. But sure, go ahead thinking that iOS is a radical change.
  - Terretta 15y ago
    > I've yet to see a single factual report showing Android's numbers being any higher than average for tech devices. Then don't read these, or you can't say that any more. Here's the NY Post, citing two research firms, ITG Investment Research and iSupply: The Galaxy Tab, Samsung's answer to the iPad, might better be called the boomerang as one Wall Street firm has found that an eye-popping 15 percent of those sold are being returned... The 15 percent return rate, which covers sales from its November debut through Jan. 16, compares to a 2 percent return rate for Apple's iPad... Rhoda Alexander, an iSuppli analyst, said, "There are a lot of issues with Android tablets, not just Samsung. A lot of those products have difficulties with high return rates or with not moving off the shelf.” http://m.nypost.com/p/news/business/galaxy_tab_dim_bulb_KbD4K6OUjTC99SQn2efrsJ http://m.nypost.com/p/news/business/galaxy_tab_dim_bulb_KbD4... More detail from AllThingsDigital's coverage of the ITG report: Buyer's Remorse: 16 Percent of Galaxy Tabs Are Returned – ITG Investment Research tracked point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 wireless stores in the US from the Galaxy Tab’s November debut through Jan. 15 and found the device to have an unusually high return rate. According to its estimates, cumulative return rates for the Galaxy Tab through December of 2010 were about 13 percent. Worse, that percentage is growing as holiday purchases are returned. ITG figures cumulative Galaxy Tab return rates through January 15 were 16 percent. http://allthingsd.com/20110201/16-percent-of-galaxy-tabs-are-returned/ http://allthingsd.com/20110201/16-percent-of-galaxy-tabs-are... "Point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 stores" and "unusually high return rate" sounds both "factual" and "higher than average" to me.

Xuzz 15y ago

The iPad had 2,000 apps on launch day: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/02/best-ipad-apps-launch/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/02/best-ipad-apps-launch/ Hell, even the HP TouchPad had 300 at launch a month ago (which may even be more than Honeycomb had then, there's no way to tell due to that Market issue). I don't know why there's so few apps for Android tablets, but I haven't seen any signs of the numbers getting much higher. And it's not like developers haven't had both 6 months to work and (for some) free Google I/O tablets to develop on.

nitrogen 15y ago
Part of the reason for the paucity of tablet-specific apps may be that Android does a better job of scaling phone-sized apps to the tablet screen. My friend's Xoom, for example, appeared to run fantastically with the same ConnectBot SSH client as my phone right after the Xoom's release. Edit: refute, please, instead of/in addition to downvoting. Seriously. Android does this.
- Xuzz 15y ago
  Android does do this, but it only very rarely has worked for me. Like, take the Dropbox app, which is even listed under "featured tablet apps": you have file listings that are 8" wide, with no more content shown on a tablet than on a phone (which is just file name and icon). A few, rare apps are usable scaled (ConnectBot is a good example), but almost nothing is ideal — or even usable — OOTB. At least with the ones I've tried.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    Would you say the Android situation is better or worse than the pixel doubling seen on the iPad for iPhone apps?
    - Xuzz 15y ago
      Not really relevant, since there's enough iPad apps that it doesn't matter: I use one pixel-doubled app on the iPad (Facebook) and they're coming out with a native app very soon anyway.

Terretta 15y ago

> 1. Uninformed consumers returning devices isn't unique to Android Tablets. It happens in basically every corner of the market. Sorry, but that's a Fox News style "counterpoint" when Android returns at 30% - 40% and iPhone returns at 1.7%. To say "there's not much you can change about that" is to dismiss what has been done to make iOS radically more approachable, comprehensible to, and usable by regular users than other platforms.

Pewpewarrows 15y ago
Funny you should say Fox News, because the 30-40% number was pulled out of thin air by a random TechCrunch writer with absolutely no sources or evidence. I've yet to see a single factual report showing Android's numbers being any higher than average for tech devices. But sure, go ahead thinking that iOS is a radical change.
- Terretta 15y ago
  > I've yet to see a single factual report showing Android's numbers being any higher than average for tech devices. Then don't read these, or you can't say that any more. Here's the NY Post, citing two research firms, ITG Investment Research and iSupply: The Galaxy Tab, Samsung's answer to the iPad, might better be called the boomerang as one Wall Street firm has found that an eye-popping 15 percent of those sold are being returned... The 15 percent return rate, which covers sales from its November debut through Jan. 16, compares to a 2 percent return rate for Apple's iPad... Rhoda Alexander, an iSuppli analyst, said, "There are a lot of issues with Android tablets, not just Samsung. A lot of those products have difficulties with high return rates or with not moving off the shelf.” http://m.nypost.com/p/news/business/galaxy_tab_dim_bulb_KbD4K6OUjTC99SQn2efrsJ http://m.nypost.com/p/news/business/galaxy_tab_dim_bulb_KbD4... More detail from AllThingsDigital's coverage of the ITG report: Buyer's Remorse: 16 Percent of Galaxy Tabs Are Returned – ITG Investment Research tracked point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 wireless stores in the US from the Galaxy Tab’s November debut through Jan. 15 and found the device to have an unusually high return rate. According to its estimates, cumulative return rates for the Galaxy Tab through December of 2010 were about 13 percent. Worse, that percentage is growing as holiday purchases are returned. ITG figures cumulative Galaxy Tab return rates through January 15 were 16 percent. http://allthingsd.com/20110201/16-percent-of-galaxy-tabs-are-returned/ http://allthingsd.com/20110201/16-percent-of-galaxy-tabs-are... "Point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 stores" and "unusually high return rate" sounds both "factual" and "higher than average" to me.